Wow, I haven't been this pumped about a MMO since Conan was announced. This games sounds very promising. I really liked AO in the post Shadow Lands era, so I'll probably enjoy this Funcom MMO as well. And It will probably release after I finally get my 360 so I'll have the option to play it on a console as well.I highly recommend checking out the art work at the darkdaysarecoming.com website. The concept art sort of looks like a combination of Hunter:TR + Dark Watch + AO, with it being set in an alternate reality NY; or is it a post-apocalyptic NY? Very cool!!

Really? How was AoC launch terrible? The game worked, and the first 20 levels were perfect. I dont count the missing late-mid level lack of content as something that can attributed to a "terrible launch", but more of poor design choices

I forgot about FFXI, but it's still not what I would call a resounding success from a North American console perspective.

So we're 4, almost 5 years into the current console generation and we've got one moderately successful MMO you can play on a current console? That doesn't give me a great deal of encouragement. I don't know what the subscriber numbers are from a console perspective, but I'm guessing it's paltry compared to PC subscribers. We've seen far more console MMOs fail (Phantasy Star) or never come to light (MS's early MMO offering, the still yet to be seen Age of Conan, etc.) than we have seen successes.

Sorry. Been burned by Funcom twice now and any new MMO from them I'm going to view with extreme skepticism. They're great at coming up with good ideas then delivering steaming piles.

BINGO

I have a lot of respect for Funcom's imagination and world building, less so for their engine building. AO was one of the worst launches ever for a game that managed to survive and it was obvious they learned nothing (or at least not the RIGHT things) from it for their release of AOC.

So while this game LOOKS fantastic, if history is any lesson it will suck hard at release, circle the drain for a few months to a year and then slowly resurrect into a good game well after its engine is outdated and any novel mechanics are stolen by other MMOs.

I'm going to love this game..I just know it... The whole atmosphere of the released stuff oozes eh..atmosphere to me, and I'm loving it

And, I'm glad they delayed it, rather than repeat past MMO's mistakes

I hate to break it to you, but Funcom delayed Age of Conan's release date twice, and it didn't help at all.

I assume it's not the same development team as AoC's, so perhaps it's unfair to paint them with the same brush. I had a fairly good time with AoC, but I did wait some months after launch before stepping into it. In retrospect, it's rather sad because AoC had probably the hugest pre-order sales and launch day player base of anything not named WoW -- for a time they went beserk adding extra servers to try to accommodate the demand. But all that dissolved away fairly quickly, and now it's going down to just two servers.

I think a better fate for The Secret World would be to start out quietly and build some word-of-mouth. Though that's at odds with the whole MMO-publishing-scheme of hype, hype, hype and desperately try to sell a zillion retail boxes while your MMO is new before it fades off the shelves, or off the Promo Pages at digital distributors.

To be honest, I dont understand how any MMO is going to compete in any way with the established MMOs. We all know that no-one can match games like WoW, Everquest, LOTRO and the likes in terms of Content, due to the amount of time they've had to add it, and the same goes for polish.

But perhaps what you suggest is the right way- I dont know, I think WoW actually kills off a lot of new MMOs before they start, which is kinda sad for the industry

If the gameplay goes in the direction I hope it goes, then this may be the first MMO I play in a long time, and that's only because it won't feel like an MMO, but more like a large scale co-op game with survival horror thrown in.

That promo about kingsmouth felt more like a horror adventure style game.

If the gameplay goes in the direction I hope it goes, then this may be the first MMO I play in a long time, and that's only because it won't feel like an MMO, but more like a large scale co-op game with survival horror thrown in.

That promo about kingsmouth felt more like a horror adventure style game.

GS: What is the significance of Kingsmouth? How will this seemingly quiet little town exemplify what The Secret World is about?

RT: It's the perfect example of what's happening all over the gameworld: Dark days are coming. And no one in the know wants widespread panic, so part of what the players have to do is contain this darkness--prevent the truth from being broadcast beyond the borders of the secret world. Part of this is, of course, kicking zombie butt. But part of it is also following your secret society's storyline, exploring the island, digging into the lore, speaking with characters--finding out what's happened, how to stop it, and how that ties into similar events across the world. It's the starting point, but New England isn't the occult ground zero. It's just the beginning of a long descent into total darkness.

So while it's tempting to dismiss it as "Oh, The Secret World is L4D2 as an MMO," the town is presumably just one place in the game world, and not The Entire Game, per se.

Yep, the first 20 levels are fantastic (the best intro area ever done I think), its the other 60 that suck. My issue with funcom is they have great imagination and are fantastic at world design, they are horrible at execution. They took a shoe in (first sci fi mmo) and tanked the release, and then a golden IP and tanked the game.

The issue I have is they fired Gaute Godeger. I can't really argue with them, he was at the helm of both AO and AOC, that said, he was also the creative driver behind the company. Since creativity is all they really sold, I see this could be an issue with future games.

Don't get me wrong, I would love for this game to be fantastic. I've really enjoyed the worlds Funcom has created (well, the parts that worked at least), so I'm crossing my fingers. Still, I'm not going to expect much out of them, and I'd say get into beta before you buy it.

I'd argue that instead of creating another 80-level game (AoC) when they won't have near the time and resources to fill that many levels with fun content, consider doing a 50-level game (or 40, or 60, or whatever) with a denser "depth of content" throughout the levels. I've started to find more and more with MMOs a sort of inconsistency throughout the game, as if a bunch of teams worked parallel but apart, and so you end up with some sections fun and some sections not, some features polished and well thought out, and some features crude and unfinished.

Maybe the thing to do would be to stop doing so darn MUCH and do less but better. I wouldn't kvetch about an MMO that "ended too soon" if I had a good time all throughout its range. I'm not suggesting a 20-level Tortage/Secret World game, only that maybe cutting back on the sheer quantity ambition might result in a better "launch game."

Man, this will either crash and burn horribly, or be the next big thing!

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And on the note of what it's like to be a character in The Secret World, take note of two interesting points: 1) There are no classes. 2) There are no levels.

Did that sink in just yet? The Secret World is trying to innovate a new kind of MMO gameplay. Characters are built upon two facets, the collection of powers and gear. And there are hundreds of powers to mix and match in the game and which can be purchased for points earned in battle and finishing quests. This way you can explore the kind of character you want to be without re-rolling your stats. Say you want to be a healer one night, then spec yourself out with your best match of healing powers. Or switch it up the next day and go for a more offensive front. The world is yours to explore and pull the powers you want to be successful. And as you collect more powerful gear, which becomes akin to leveling, your powers will scale with it

I like this! We've seen some of the ideas before, in guild wars for instance, but this looks very very interesting. I wonder what the pull will be then. In other games its levels, here it must be the gear?

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Ragnar and Martin called the game a “field trip for min-maxers,” meaning that anyone trying to work out the best way to spec a build can really go to town with the seemingly endless combinations. And while technically a single player can collect every power, it's going to take a very long time. This way of building characters is aimed at breaking down the usual archetypes of DPS, healers and tanks. People will be able to innovate new ways of making themselves useful, though I'm sure some combinations of the classics will emerge.

OneEyeRed asks: Could you go over how combat works to some extent for us?

Ragnar: In detail - no. But we've already talked about how players can equip seven active powers and seven passive powers before heading out to do missions and fight monsters, and that choice - from hundreds of available powers - is really the driving force behind the combat.

The mix of powers, both actives and passives, and the powers equipped by your team mates, is key, and these powers are designed to work together to create powerful 'combos'. This makes the system really unique and a ton of fun to play. [sounds a bit like the Fellowship combos in LOTRO-bj]

Also, since we don't have classes in The Secret World, you can buy and equip any powers you want, creating a totally unique hybrid character - if that's what you want - or a super focused one if you prefer to play an archetype like healer or tank. For example. It's a very flexible and very deep system that will hopefully keep players engaged for a long, long time.

Much of it is rather vague, "we can't talk about that yet" stuff, and a lot of questions are sort of "are you going to make the same screw-ups the AoC dev team did?"